Understanding Latino Immigration: A Book List

This June I have been invited to present on a panel at the American Library Association’s Annual Conference. The panel focuses on library services to Latino immigrants, and my portion of the presentation is on the literature of Latino immigration. My goal for the presentation is to highlight novels—both literary and genre fiction—that illuminate for readers of all backgrounds the forces driving immigrants northward, their arduous journey, and the lives the newcomers make in the United States. I hope that through these books, readers will gain a greater understanding of the circumstances of their immigrant neighbors, and this understanding will translate into better services for new Americans and a more civil dialogue on the issue of immigration reform.

I have been asked to speak at the panel about my own novel, Gringolandia, which touches on a little-discussed aspect of the immigration crisis—the role U.S. foreign policy plays in driving Latin American immigrants northward. U.S. support for dictatorships throughout the region—in Gringolandia, for instance, the military coup that toppled democratically-elected President Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973—led to hundreds of thousands fleeing for their lives. While few Chileans ended up in the United States—most went to Mexico, Canada, or Europe—the U.S. became the destination of choice for countless Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Dominicans, Cubans, and others. (Even though the Cubans fled a Communist dictatorship opposed by the U.S., I would argue that U.S. support for Castro’s corrupt and dictatorial predecessor created the conditions for violent revolution and the subsequent “dictatorship of the proletariat.”) At the same time, economic policies that have impoverished the U.S.’s neighbors have also created the impetus for massive immigration. It is no coincidence that immigration from Mexico accelerated after the passage of NAFTA, as free trade has worsened inequality and made life harder for poor Mexicans.

The following is the preliminary list of books I have selected, with brief annotations. I welcome comments and additional suggestions. All publishers and dates are for the books’ original editions.

Four sisters must adapt to life in the United States after their family flees the Dominican Republic due to their father’s political activities during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Sensible Carla, beautiful Sandra, artistic Yolanda, and rebellious Sofia learn English, become assimilated, outrage their elders, and engage in humorous intrigues against parents, boyfriends, and each other.

Diaz, Junot. The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. New York: Riverhead, 2007.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prise, Diaz’s novel depicts a nerdy, overweight Dominican-American youth who longs for romance, adventure, and literary stardom. A curse allegedly placed on the family by dictator Rafael Trujillo has driven Oscar’s mother from the land of her birth, her wealthy family ruined and she maimed by a series of assaults. The same curse leads Oscar to return to his mother’s native land to discover his roots and overcome his own misfortunes.

García, Cristina. Dreaming in Cuban. New York: Knopf, 1992.

The triumph of Fidel Castro in 1959 divides the members of the middle class del Pino family. Matriarch Celia remains loyal to the revolution while daughter Lourdes departs for the United States with her young child. Years later, Lourdes and her daughter Pilar return to Cuba, where they betray Celia in this story of intergenerational conflict, intrigue, and tragedy.

Gabriela de la Paz comes of age in one of the few Colombian families in a Miami dominated by Cuban refugees in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Gabi’s father is slowly descending into mental illness, but his frightened and abused family attempts to medicate him in secret rather than getting help out of fear of deportation.

After a flood destroys their shack in a Mexican village, drowns her baby sister, and causes her father to leave for United States never to be heard from again, 13-year-old Juana struggles to survive. When her mother kills an abusive but politically powerful loan shark, Juana flees the village in search of her father. Juana’s encounter with a Mexican-American teenage runaway in a Tijuana jail becomes the unexpected beginning of a new life.

This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, adapted into a movie, features two brothers, musicians who immigrate to the United States from Cuba in 1949. Through memorable characters, Hijuelos portrays five decades of Cuban immigration from the cigar makers who came to Tampa in the 1940s to the various waves of migrants fleeing the corrupt regime of U.S. ally Fulgencio Batista and the Communist dictatorship of Fidel Castro.

Jiménez, Francisco. The Circuit. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.

In this autobiographical novel, a perceptive, intelligent sixth grader narrates the story of his family’s border crossing from Mexico to the United States and episodes in their difficult lives as migrant workers. Forever dodging immigration authorities, they are finally caught on the day young Panchito has prepared his emotional recitation of the Declaration of Independence in English for his class. The narrator/author’s struggles and triumphs continue in Breaking Through (Houghton Mifflin, 2001) and Reaching Out (Houghton Mifflin, 2008), as he excels in high school and attends college.

Limón narrates the story of a group of travelers—nearly all complete strangers—who cast their lot with an experienced smuggler. They include a Salvadoran woman who has survived her country’s civil war and an abusive husband, two teenage Mexican brothers seeking a better life in the United States, and a mysterious, well-dressed stranger. The story is told by each major character in turn, as each one plays a critical role in the dangerous journey to the United States.

A 19-year-old Mexican-American woman helps to hide a Salvadoran refugee in Arizona as part of the Sanctuary Movement in the early 1980s and finds herself falling in love with this former student and political activist. However, the traumas experienced by her lover resurfaces in his abuse of her and his inability to commit to a relationship, even after she discovers she is pregnant with his child.

Taking place in 2020, this dystopic novel portrays a fear-filled United States in which nativist vigilantes run rampant in the border areas from Texas to California and a craven President orders those of Latino heritage rounded up and sent to relocation camps. On the other side, a revolutionary secessionist movement simmers. A hard-working Mexican-American truck driver takes a job for a recycling company, not knowing that he is being recruited for the revolution and seduced by its attractive Uruguayan-American leader.

Ryan, Pam Muñoz. Esperanza Rising. New York: Scholastic, 2000.

A Mexican girl and her mother go from riches to rags after her father is murdered by bandits and her uncles confiscate his property. At the beginning of the Great Depression, mother and daughter travel to California in search of work and a fresh start. Thirteen-year-old Esperanza learns that her past wealth doesn’t protect her; like all the Hispanic migrant workers, she is demeaned and exploited. The novel is based on the life of the author’s own grandmother.

Lyn Miller-Lachmann

8 Responses

Immigration policy is certainly in the spotlight right now and one of the largest groups of immigrants in the United States is from Latin America. So understanding the immigrant experience and the cultural context in which people come seeking a better life is a terrific contribution to dealing with immigration reform in a healthy and humane way.

Particularly during this Passover holiday that celebrates liberation of all kinds, including from mental slavery and ideological blinders, it’s valuable to understand what it means to leave home in search of freedom and a better life.

Here’s a good example of how rigid ideology can exclude understanding of both cultural and historical contexts and render “justice” impossible. In particular, the intersection of “homeland security” and immigration policy creates incredible waste and suffering and certainly doesn’t make us safer or more liberated in any way.

Victor Toro is an undocumented Chilean exile facing deportation despite 20 years of community organizing in the Bronx.
Department of Homeland Security attorneys allege his opposition to the Pinochet dictatorship in the aftermath of the bloody 1973 coup was “terrorism.”

What makes Toro’s case even more distressing is that the dictatorship officially “disappeared” him, so that if he were to return to Chile, he would be an undocumented immigrant there. In order to make it harder for Pinochet’s opponents to return and challenge him, the military government and its functionaries scrubbed birth certificates, school records, and other official documents–going beyond stripping people’s citizenship to stripping evidence of their very existence.

Combining some of my thoughts from my post on experiences in Hawaii with concerns for a positive approach to living with immigrants, I want to refer to the negative comments anti-immigrant reform activists often make regarding immigrants living in closed communities where they adhere to the traditions and languages of their countries of origin. Some people argue especially vehemently against immigrants from Mexico on this basis and ignore the reality that many groups of immigrants have followed this pattern upon arriving in the United States.

Many cities have “Italian” or “Polish” or “Korean” neighborhoods.

For the most part this pattern has worked very well. When first arriving, immigrants need the support they are more likely to get from people speaking a familiar language and living in similar family patterns with familiar customs. That is one reason I alluded to the significant numbers of Asians in Hawaii who are bilingual.

As time goes on, the first and second generation Americans from many lands learn English (whether or not they learn their parents’ languages as well). They move into mainstream jobs, mainstream neighborhoods, and mainstream educational institutions.

We see this happening all the time within the Hispanic community. And look at the rest of us….we think both pizza and tacos are American now..along with frankfurters and goulash and teriyaki and kielbasa and roast beef and lox and bagels…(none of which were much eaten by American Indians until Europeans and others arrived). Sweet and sour, curry, lumpia: our Americanization knows no bounds.

It fits our needs perfectly the advantage of immigration reform on the country: Greater supply of unskilled workers, a younger workforce, and skilled workers in needed sectors. But there is also a disadvantage of immigration reform like Greater poverty, more educational cost, lower unskilled wage levels, and increased danger of terrorism. Thanks to the post!

Dear I.K. Your comment is interesting but it only describes one side of the equation of immigration reform, the needs of business and agribusiness in the United States. There’s also the whole aspect of the lives and talents and situations of the immigrants themselves, which are made vivid in some of these books.

Yes we would need to pay some material costs to truly integrate immigrants into our nation but the benefits to all in terms of human rights and major contributions to our society would more than balance those costs.

One part of your comment raised questios for me: Why would immigration reform and the creation of legal status for current residents of the United States, with clear rules for other migrants, increase the danger of terrorism?

No one opposes legal immigration. However, to accept 15 million almost all unskilled illegal aliens is about the dumbest move this inept Administration could make. Let’s put legal immigrants with skills that are in demand at the head of the line. The cost to many states to hnadle the burden on the schools, emergency rooms, and jails as the result of all these illegals is criminal. ICE needs to become far more active.

#6, Personally I don’t think there is a “solution” to the issue of illegal immigration. I look forward to the possibility that there may be partial solutions that help mitigate some of the current negative effects.

Two things need to be kept in mind as we think about the “problem.”

One, whatever the number is and 15 million may be accurate, there is no way to deport or jail them all. They are here for good or ill. And some of the good is the labor they provide to fuel many businesses (and provide cheaper services for many of us than we would be paying for if the services were provided by only native born or naturalized Americans).

Another point is to remember that US policies over the years have done little to assist Mexico (and other immigration source countries) in raising their standards of living to tolerable levels for the majority of their citizens. In fact, at times US economic policies have worked against the economic security of people in such countries.

Put yourself in the place of the individual immigrant for example. I don’t know if any economic motive would prompt me to try the dangerous trek from interior Mexico across dangerous rivers and deserts to US soil. I do know I can imagine the motivtion of those who see no hope of satisfying their modest ambitions or basic family needs while living in jobless Mexican communities or communities where the work available will barely provide life’s minimal necessities. I imagine and empathize with the motivation of a person in such circumstances who lives within reach of a place where they can provide for both themselves and their families in a life sustaining way and sometimes in a way that provides a much better future for their children.

However, I believe the point of the book list is to deepen our understanding of many categories of people who come to these shores and experience challenges of adjustment, education, and employment that are quite different from what the majority of us experience. Along the way of reading such stories, we may also gain a deeper understanding of the myriad positive contributions such people make to our larger society.

Phana the different aspects of what is needed for comprehensive, human rights-based immigration reform are very complex.
Even some immigrant rights advocates disagree about the best ways to proceed.

One thing that would definitely not be helpful is having ICE become “more active” and imprisoning and deporting those who have lived here for many years and are productive, tax-paying, integral, and contributing members of their communities. This is especially true of those who are the parents or spouses of US citizens and those who were brought here as children, having no say in that choice, and are now fully educated and ready to become skilled members of our nation. This is where the DREAM ACT makes a lot of sense.

It would also be more humane and much more efficient to take this issue out of the realm of “criminal or law enforcement” and place it in a separate immigration department. Not the Department of Homeland Security, but an agency headed by a cabinet-level position that manages and integrates migration, rather than treating it as a criminal act. Blanket, stereotyping statements about immigrants and who and what they are detracts from the conversation and actions that need to take place to secure our borders while also securing our highest ideals of human rights and compassion.

Note: The Times Union is not responsible for posts and comments written by non-staff members.

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